Projects

In addition to serving our membership, the Child Welfare League of Canada (CWLC) is involved in projects that support its mission and guiding beliefs. Please take some time to learn more about the important ongoing work of CWLC by reading about our ongoing projects. If you would like additional information please contact us and we will be happy to assist you.

Every Child Matters: Studying Foster Care in Canada

Funder: Child Welfare League of Canada

This project reflects the single largest effort to understand the challenges to recruitment and retention of foster parents in Canada. In the context of a thorough international review of the foster parent literature and with the input from 941 foster parents representing every province and territory in the country, the findings shed light on the challenges to organizations that are charged with caring for children and youth who are arguably the most vulnerable in our culture due to their histories of neglect, sexual and / or physical victimization, and seek safety and care in the homes of foster care providers. The Report was officially launched on October 23, 2014 in Ottawa by the CWLC in partnership with Sheila Durnford, President of the Canadian Foster Family Association (CFFA) and the author of the report, Dr. Alan Leschied from the University of Western Ontario.

For the Alberta’s Child Intervention Roundtable in January 2014, CWLC, in collaboration with Alberta Human Services, is advising the province to develop and implement an effective Child Death Review System which serves to better protect children. We undertook an international review of best practices to prepare for Alberta’s Child Intervention roundtable, which fostered a strong consensus for a systemic improvement of Alberta’s child death review system.

CWLC is working with the Government of the Northwest Territories to develop a workload & caseload management study in child protection. In 2014, The CWLC conducted site research that included interviews with child protection workers, supervisors, managers, and executive level staff. Detailed file reviews were also conducted to determine file completeness on the sites visited. This project is scheduled to be complete by the end of March 2015 with the submission of a final report. The CWLC looks forward to working with the Territory and completing this important process of child protection capacity development. The CWLC worked with one of our members Dr. Grant Charles (UBC) as a technical consultant on the project. He was assisted by Michelle Haywood-Farmer (UBC).

Mapping and Promoting the Use of Family Violence Surveillance Data

Funder: Public Health Agency of Canada.

CWLC has been working with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to examine nation level data on child maltreatment and intimate partner violence and its use by government departments and agencies. The goal of this project will be supplement policy, program, and research on the existing family violence data collected at the federal level for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). This data will serve as a basis for discussion with Family Violence Initiative (FVI) members to inform them on family violence prevention efforts and priorities at the federal level.

Development of an Enhanced Prevention Model

Funder: Innu Round Table Secretariat (IRT)

The nature and scope of the project includes: developing a business plan for an Enhanced Prevention Model for the delivery of child welfare prevention services; an environmental scan; and, a mapping exercise. CWLC will work in partnership with the IRT and Innu communities to ensure the mapping exercise outlines the cultural strengths of the two communities.

Child Labour Prevention

Funder: Eliminate Child Labour Foundation, Switzerland

CWLC was invited by the Eliminate Child Labour Foundation (ECL) to develop a partnership to provide technical assistance to support their work on child protection capacity development in Tanzania. The CWLC with key stakeholders includes: UNICEF Tanzania, Prime Minister’s Office Tanzania, Federal Departments Tanzania, and social service organizations is working to outline framework of child protection capacity development. CWLC is developing program content for an expert panel on child protection for a National Child Labour Prevention Conference to be convened in 2015.

South Africa Child Protection Surveillance Study

Funder: Department of Social Development, Republic of South Africa

CWLC has been working in collaboration with the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) to enhance the provision of child welfare services and the development of a national data collection and analysis system on child abuse. CWLC provides technical assistance of designing, developing and presenting a sustainability costing to support ongoing surveillance and research in child abuse for the Government of South Africa.

Knowledge Mobilization Innovation Project

Funder: Children and Youth in Challenging Circumstances (CYCC)

CWLC was engaged by the Children and Youth in Challenging Circumstances Network to provide technical assistance with the knowledge mobilization imperative of the CYCC Network. Children and youth can experience common risks to their mental health; this is particularly pronounced when they live in challenging contexts characterized by family violence, child maltreatment, child labour, war and other adversities. These shared risks and threats can be better addressed when researchers, service providers, practitioners and communities share their knowledge, resources and lessons learned around how to best improve the mental health of children and young people.

The CWLC was pleased to have Dr. Michael Ungar, Scientific Director of the CYCC Network present in our webinar series. The webinar series has reached participants across all Canadian provinces and territories through an interactive online forum. Leading Canadian presenters from the field of Mental Health, Youth Justice, and Child welfare offered leading edge webinars to all participants.

Productions Cazabon, in partnership with the CWLC, the Law Foundation of Ontario and the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN), is developing a short documentary and multi-media viewer guide about youth navigating Ontario’s Youth Justice System. The project will help educate youth in institutions, youth in care, and at-risk youth to create a more accessible youth justice system. This project will also be an educational tool for frontline workers and youth justice organizations to provide indepth and personal insight into the experiences of youth in Ontario’s justice system, which cannot always be adequately expressed solely through statistics and research based data.

Past Projects

Promoting Parent Education and Support (PPES)The objective of this endeavour was to develop culturally relevant parenting education tools and professional education materials to inform parents and/or guardians about positive parenting. The effects of physical punishment of children and child abuse were also incorporated. For more information, please contact us at info@cwlc.ca.

Building Education Opportunities in Canadian Child Welfare Servcies (BEO)
This three-year project from the Adult Learning, Literacy and Essential Skills Program, Human Resources and Social Development, wrapped up on December 31, 2010. The BEO focused on increasing access to post secondary education for children in care and children receiving services from child welfare agencies. For information on Building Education Opportunities contact us at info@cwlc.ca.

National Consultation Centre (NCC)
The NCC provides consulting and management services to organizations and governments working on behalf of children, youth and families.

Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare (CECW)
CWLC, in partnership with the University of Toronto Faculty of Social Work, and l'Institut de recherche pour le développement social des jeunes (IRDS), forms the Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare, one of five Centres of Excellence for Children's Well-Being funded by Health Canada.